She stood by her man — and it saved the disgraced ex-Wall Street investment banker from serving significant jail time.
Frank “Perk” Hixon Jr. admitted to insider trading to help support his love child — but he caught a huge break during his sentencing Friday when his scorned socialite wife begged a Manhattan federal judge to show her cheating hubby some leniency.
“When Perk told me the story of the child who is my step-daughter . . . I felt shocked, anger, grief,” Marguerite Lammot Lee said. “There was an obvious path open to me: Walk away. But it was clear, and it was clear to both of us, that we wanted to be together; we wanted to go forward together.
“We all make mistakes,” she added. “Some of us very big ones. But the measure of a man is what he does next; and Perk has worked hard to atone for those actions and to counter their burden on those most affected by them.”
Following 10 minutes of teary-eyed testimony, Judge Ronnie Abrams sentenced the disgraced former senior managing director of Evercore Partners to 2½ years in jail. Hixon, 55, had faced five years in prison under federal guidelines for tipping a Texas mistress to upcoming deals so she could earn enough money to support their 5-year-old daughter.
The opera-loving Hixon, who met his high-society wife of 26 years when they were both at Harvard Business School, claims his baby mama, Destiny Robinson, 37, was too proud to accept child-support checks — but was more than willing to receive investment advice.
So, Hixon says, he opened up a brokerage account in her name and used inside information on deals he was working on from 2011-2013 to profitably trade in those stocks to fatten up both that account and another he set up for his father — to the tune of nearly $1 million in profits.
“I did the wrong thing. I did a stupid thing, and I know that,” Hixon told the judge, while pausing several times to hold back tears. “It wasn’t done for any kind of financial return; it was potentially some way of connecting” with the love child.
“My actions cost me my job, my career,” said Hixon, who added he’s at least “thankful” for the support from his wife and other family members.
The power couple held hands as they left the courthouse. Both declined to comment.
In addition to his prison sentence, the judge fined Hixon $100,000, and ordered him to forfeit $710,000 to the government and to pay $1,204,777.80 in restitution to Evercore.